


Musical Chairs II

by Kadorienne



Series: Musical Chairs [2]
Category: DCU
Genre: AU, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadorienne/pseuds/Kadorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A second AU series about Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I still intend to write more of the first "Musical Chairs" series of snippets, but I've had these bits on my hard drive for years now and I'm tired of not sharing them.

Queen Hippolyte had taken to strolling on the shores of Themyscira alone in recent months. For centuries she had been contented in the safe haven of the Amazons, with the purpose of keeping the monsters trapped beneath it enough to satisfy her soul. But of late, she had begun to harbor an impossible wish. It had been three millenia since she had last seen a man, and her memories of that time were not pleasant. But now, she yearned for the one thing only a man could give her. Unless the gods granted her a miracle.

Just as she had that thought, the Queen looked up at the stars, in time to see her miracle being provided.

The shooting star became visible just over the statue of Demeter, and fell in a glittering arc to land a few yards away from Hippolyte. As she gazed in wonder at the odd metal case with its undecipherable symbols, a door in the case opened. Within, looking startled but unhurt, was a perfect, beautiful baby girl.

"May the gods be praised," Hippolyte breathed, kneeling to take their gift in her arms. "I shall call her... Kala!"

* * *

The Waynes observed all the ancient rituals scrupulously. They never doubted that the gods would grant their request, in time. Though the method the gods took was a surprise.

The Waynes spoke and read ancient Greek and studied how the Hellenes had revered the gods and did their best to worship as they had done. They weren't alone, but those with the patience to revive a long-dormant faith in as close to its original form as they could manage were few.

It was on the feast day of Artemis that it happened. They both recited the ancient words and offered up their own prayers (in Greek, of course) in the little outdoor chapel they had set up themselves in a secluded nook on their estate. It was a beautiful morning, and they felt the presence of their gods very keenly.

Yielding to a sudden impulse, Martha fell to her knees and began forming a statue of an infant out of the soft, yielding black soil. When it was finished she and her husband both raised their faces to the sky.

They would have settled – with gratitude – for receiving a child in the ordinary way. But perhaps the long-neglected Olympians were ready for something more spectacular. There was a tremendous flash of light, and when the Waynes were able to open their eyes, the statue had become a real child.

Contrary to what some of their coreligionists assumed, they did not name her after the debased Roman form of Artemis. Thomas's mother had died only a short time before, so it was natural to name their miraculous daughter after her.

Over the years, many of the other Reconstructionists fell away from the faith, but the parents of Diana Wayne had too clear a miracle before their eyes to do that.

* * *

Little Bruce Kent came into the world in the ordinary way. His parents went about getting him the way parents always have, and Martha Kent's belly swelled and caused months of happily endured discomfort just like every woman's. It was good enough for most people and it was good enough for him. There was nothing miraculous about it, except that the expressed love of two people forming a new, conscious, feeling, unique life is always a miracle no matter how many times it happens.

It wasn't until later that he seemed different. And even then, not so different that his parents had to wonder if capricious gods had intervened, or if he was from another planet, though they might have joked about that once or twice.


	2. Chapter 2

"Indeed, your Majesty, the Princess is a gift from the gods!" Ariadne said. She and the Queen were watching the drills, the ones the Amazons had been doing for thousands of years, ever since the treachery that had caused them to retreat to Paradise Island.

Princess Kala's training had presented unexpected challenges. Amazons were trained from birth to channel their mental energies to perform incredible feats of strength. Kala had shattered her own cradle with her tiny fists, long before she was old enough to have received any such lessons. Amazons honed their speed with exercises perfected over centuries. As soon as she could walk, Kala could move faster than a well-hurled discus. Amazons learned to armor themselves from the elements with their body electricity, but baby Kala had been invulnerable from infancy. Without a moment's training, she had surpassed all of her sisters.

Mala carefully fastened the ropes around Philana and stood back. Philana began the carefully designed contortions that slowly loosened the ropes until she was able to work herself free. Her sisters applauded as the ropes fell to the ground.

"She is," the Queen agreed. "My only fear is that they must have some special destiny for her. They would not have given her the endowments she has, else."

Kala was not only a natural champion at all Amazon prowess. The gods had also chosen to gift her with the ability to heat things just by looking at them, to see through solid walls, to fly through the air. Amazon training was irrelevant to the princess.

Mala welded Philana's bracelets to the stone wall. Amazons were far stronger than normal humans, but breaking heavy iron chains was challenging even for them. All the Amazons practiced constantly and fiercely to augment their natural strength in order to do this.

Philana gritted her teeth. Her every muscle strained. It took several tries, but at last, the chain heaved out of the wall and Philana was free. Her sisters cheered, and Philana staggered from the field, gasping for breath.

“You're next, Princess Kala,” Mala called. The princess stepped forward, and Mala smiled at the sight of her. Aphrodite too had blessed the princess; Kala was gloriously beautiful, with shiny blue-black hair (one little curl always fell over the middle of her forehead), broad muscled shoulders, and a gleaming white smile. In beauty as in all else, she surpassed all of her sisters.

Six Amazons approached, carrying the immense chains that had been built especially for Kala. Sweating with the effort, they wound the chains around the princess, layer after layer. It took a quarter of an hour to wrap up the patiently waiting Kala.

Once she was trussed up, Kala flexed her muscles, and a second later the heavy chains were in scraps around her feet. “I'm sorry, Hagne,” she said apologetically to the blacksmith.

Hippolyte sighed. “We are going to have to find a challenge for the princess, Ariadne.”

* * *

The Kents and their son Bruce took a wrong turn as they left the theater and found themselves in an alley. They weren't to blame, they only visited Metropolis occasionally and didn't know their way around.

They weren't particularly perturbed at first; the crowd leaving the theater was just behind them, and the bright lights and bustle of the alley's other end weren't far.

But abruptly a dark shape stepped out of a doorway. The Kents stopped in their tracks at the glint of a gun in the man's hand.

“Hand over your wallet, nice and slow,” the man ordered Jonathan. Jonathan did so, taking the opportunity to step slightly in front of his wife. Bruce, on the other side of her, seemed to be paralyzed, unable to move even to hide behind his mother.

“Give me your purse, lady,” the mugger said to Martha next, and Martha complied without a word.

As soon as he had it the mugger took off running. The Kents also ran, in the opposite direction, Jonathan hanging on to his son's hand. Back in the crowds and the bright lights, they stopped to breathe oxygen and the sense of safety. Then Jonathan went to the nearest pay phone and called the police.

The policeman took their report. He tried to be reassuring, but he had had to deal with too many such crimes and his words had become rote. Besides, the Kents were luckier than many – none of them had been hurt.

The following day the Kents took Bruce to the zoo and the science museum, but he was still in shock from the mugging and seemed all but oblivious to his surroundings. At length, they packed up and went back to Smallville early. As they'd hoped, their son relaxed almost as soon as they were back in familiar surroundings, and soon was back to his usual self.

But the experience had its effect on him, and that would show in time. 

* * *

The Waynes were used to the popular misinformation about their faith, so when _The Clash of the Titans_ remake was released, they chose to enjoy seeing their deities on the silver screen rather than complain… too much… about everything the movies got wrong. Indeed, when their daughter Diana was a little older, the movie would be a handy educational tool; they could go through it and point out every anachronism, every misunderstanding of the Gods, every detail of the myths that was mistaken.

For now, little Diana was too enraptured with the dazzling special effects and the heroic adventure to care much about accuracy. As she and her parents left the theater, she kept dancing ahead of them, reenacting bits of the movie for their benefit. Some children played at being cowboys or Luke Skywalker; Diana Wayne played at being Perseus.

"And then Medusa! That was the best part!" Diana held up one arm as if it had a shield and pretended to look in it while her free hand thrust an imaginary sword at an invisible opponent.

"Maybe we should send her to fencing lessons," Martha remarked as they turned into the alley that led to the parking lot.

"Oh, yes! Swordfighting! That would be the most fun!" Diana skipped ahead of her parents and struck a swordfighting pose taken from the movies. Then she turned back to them, saying, "And I want horseback riding lessons! Even if I'll never get to ride Pegasus."

Thomas chuckled. "Whatever my princess wants. At your age, you need more activities anyhow. But be careful not to show everything you can do."

It was a familiar admonition. Little Diana knew that the Gods who had generously created her had chosen to give her abilities most mortals did not have, and that she must hide this from most people. Someday, her parents assured her, the time would be right.

"I wish they'd done the movie in Greek!" she announced, making both her parents laugh. She didn't see what was funny about that, but she smiled up at them, taking both their hands as they caught up to her.

A second later they stopped. Diana looked away from their now-frozen faces to see what had made them halt.

A man was standing there, his hat pulled down to shadow his face, the collar of his coat turned up. He held a gun pointed at them.

"Hand over your wallet," the stranger ordered roughly. Even Diana could tell that the man was frightened.

It was the man's obvious fear that encouraged Thomas to step forward. "Be reasonable," he said in a soothing voice. "We don't want any trouble. I can help you-"

The gun fired. Thomas Wayne fell to the ground. For a second, neither of his women could believe it. It was the stranger's grab for Martha's pearl necklace that jolted her out of her shock enough to scream. In a panic, he jerked his hand back and shot her as her pearls scattered on the ground. Then he ran. The two murders had taken perhaps three seconds.

Because Diana was too stunned to scream, it was several minutes before people following the gunshots found her. She was kneeling between the lifeless bodies of her parents, staring after the man who had taken them from her. When someone gently took her hand to lead her away, she followed without resisting. Her unnatural calm worried everyone enough that they kept her in the hospital overnight.

Diana Wayne did not cry that night, or at the funeral. But she did when she was alone in her own bed that night, as well as many, many nights in the years to come.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friendship between Bruce Kent and Lex Luthor.

Smallville was agog that a billionaire had picked it as his new home. The swiftly built Luthor mansion was larger than any other building in town, including the county jail or the high school. The high school, by the way, was agog at having Lionel Luthor's teenage son enrolled.

Bruce Kent's parents were agog at the fast friendship which quickly sprang up between Lex Luthor and their son.

Perhaps it was only to be expected that two such intellects would attract each other. It began with friendly competition to see which of them could make the best grades, and soon evolved into hours after school trading books, talking about science and history and everything else under the sun, always challenging each other, trying to exceed each other in knowledge, showing off for each other. It was a constant contest, thoroughly enjoyed by both of them. Only in athletics did either have a clear advantage; Lex had little interest in sports, while Bruce approached them with the same competitive fire with which he did everything.

Also, in Martha Kent's opinion, Bruce was the much better looking boy. Lex had good features, but his eyebrows were a bit too arched, and his hair was too brightly copper. But she never said this out loud.

Jonathan Kent had been near the head of his class when he got his Ph.D. in agriculture, but he had never had the kind of intellectual passion his son did. So he watched the friendship in bemusement. One day when he came home to discover the boys playing grim, intense chess on the veranda, he shook his head and teased them, “When I was your age, I spent most of my time thinking about girls.”

Bruce shrugged, not looking up, and told a time-honored adolescent lie. “I don't have time for girls.”

Lex did look up, raising one eyebrow. (Bruce, to his chagrin, couldn't do that, no matter how hard he tried. He had never cared before meeting Lex.) “That's code for 'I'm too chicken to ask Lana Lang out'.”

Bruce probably realized that it was useless to deny it with his ears now the color of Lex's hair. “Traitor,” he muttered, avoiding his father's interested gaze.

“Lana Lang, is it? Well, Lana's a nice girl. And the Langs are a respectable family.” Jonathan was about to offer some encouragement when Lex cut in.

“See, Bruce? Your father approves. Now you just have to speak to _her_ father, and give him time to get his shotgun and round up a white dress and a preacher.”

Bruce launched himself at the other boy. The chess pieces scattered across the veranda as the boys went down to the floor, grappling. 

“Mr. Kent! Help! I'm being assassinated!”

Mr. Kent, however, remembered perfectly well the difference between fighting and wrassling, and saw no reason to interfere. He walked past the boys, who were at that moment engaged in trying to choke each other, saying, “Dinner's in twenty minutes. Finish assassinating him in time for both of you to wash up.”

He whistled as he washed his hands and moved to help his wife. “What are you so cheerful about?” she asked, stirring a pot of vegetables.

Jonathan grinned at himself. “Bruce isn't a changeling after all.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friendship between Bruce and Lex starts to change.

Bruce couldn't believe it when he heard the Luthors were back in Smallville, had been for a week. He dropped everything and ran over to the mansion immediately. The butler let him in without question. “Master Lex is in his room,” he said. It always made Bruce feel weird to hear Lex called that, but he thanked the man politely and ran up the stairs eagerly.

The door was open so he just charged right in. “Lex, you dork. Why didn't you tell-” He stopped on a dime.

The person sitting in the window seat, knees pulled up to his chest and a book balanced on them, looked up. The irony and weariness in his expression were new, but the face was indubitably Lex's.

“What happened?” Bruce was too shocked to be tactful.

With a sour half-smile, Lex looked back to his book, as if Bruce's interruption was all but over. “I was touring my father's company. I wasn't supposed to go into the experimental labs, but I did. Opened the wrong door.”

“But you're okay?”

Lex glanced up briefly. “If you call this okay. I'm not going to die, if that's what you mean.”

“Good grief, Lex! I thought you'd had chemotherapy or something! You scared the hell out of me.” Reassured, Bruce finally stopped lurking in the doorway and threw himself into his usual spot across from Lex on the window seat. “Will your hair start to grow back before school starts?”

The other boy smiled coldly. “It isn't going to grow back.”

Bruce stared at him. “So what's really wrong?” 

The only answer was a glare.

“Oh, come on. Since when are you vain? It's not like you're a girl or anything. Stop being a jerk and tell me what the problem is. ”

“What does not being a girl have to do with it?” 

Bruce couldn't recognize the boy sitting across from him. It wasn't the bald head; after the first moment of surprise, it actually looked okay. But this chill reserve from the boy who'd laughed as they challenged each other to greater and greater heights, that made him a stranger.

Well. Bruce doubted that he would overreact this much to being funny looking, but if it bothered Lex that much, he needed to be snapped out of it. And Bruce's duty as a friend was to snap him.

“I bet you haven't had pizza all summer,” he said, as if his friend hadn't lost all of his usual warmth as well as his hair. “Let's go to the Talon. I'll tell you about the engine I built while you were gone.”

“I don't think so.” Lex was looking at his book again, but obviously wasn't reading it.

“You scared of people looking at you funny?” Bruce put just a bit of a sneer into his voice.

The other boy's eyes snapped to his. It was a crude and obvious tactic, but Lex was smart enough to know everything Bruce wasn't bothering to say, and that he was right. He was going to get double takes for the rest of his life, at least until he was old enough that being bald wasn't odd. He had a choice of hiding from the world like a weakling, or taking it on the chin until he was so at ease in his own hairless skin that nobody's stupid gawking bothered him anymore.

Given Lex's personality, it was a foregone conclusion.

“All right, all right.” Lex stood, tossing the book aside, and followed Bruce out the door. They went to the Talon. They ate. Lex acted as if he didn't notice the people furtively peering at his bald head and listened politely to Bruce's engine-building saga, offering nothing himself.

Clearly, Bruce decided as he was heading home, it was going to take some time to get the old Lex back.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diana Wayne meets the Joker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm skipping ahead a bit. I'm just impatient to finally share this.

Chiroptera blasted through the wall and sped in amid a cascade of broken bricks, but she was too late. All but two of the hostages had already been killed. The remaining two held scalpels, red and dripping, and their faces were also red and dripping from what had been done to them before they had volunteered to assist. Their eyes were glassy, vacant as they turned to regard her without recognition.

Chiroptera stood still and gazed around the bloody room, too stunned even for horror.

“How could you?” she whispered after a moment. Despite her mask, the sheen of tears could be seen in her eyes.

A net of incredibly strong, heavy cables descended over her, and a gale of falsetto laughter broken through her shock.

“I thought the world could use more smiles!” the Joker crowed, waving the scalpel with which he had carved the “smiles”. As he spoke, a cloud of little darts emerged from the wall and headed for Chiroptera. Still hampered by the net, she was unable to evade them all. Two stuck in her, and she felt the paralysis begin to spread through her.

“You'll be lovely with a big wide smile like mine, Batwench!” he exclaimed while she struggled against the venom. “Hope the net didn't bruise your lovely skin, but it's so hard to get you to hold still! Somebody got ta nail dat girl's fins to da floor.”

Chiroptera froze in place, still draped in the heavy net. The clown advanced on her, giggling. “Don't worry, my dear; my special potion will paralyze you, but you'll be able to feel every delightful moment of your makeover!”

The Joker stopped in mid-guffaw when Chiroptera abruptly returned to life and broke the net in an explosion of cable fragments. He quickly pressed his _boutonnière, but though the venom had slowed Chiroptera down, she was still too swift for him._

_ “It would have taken at least five of those darts,” she told him gently. _

_ “Wait, my act isn't over! I still have more tricks up my sleeve!” The  Joker dove for what appeared to be a bright purple bazooka, but he never had the chance to demonstrate what it could do. Golden rope encircled him, fastening his arms at his sides. _

_ He started to wriggle against the unbreakable rope, but froze. The lasso's true power was that of truth. No one could lie while touching it. Not even to himself. _

_ “No – no!” The grotesque smile was gone from his chalky face. His yellow eyes were wide in even greater horror than Chiroptera had felt. “I couldn't have – I didn't want to!”  _

_ He began to gasp for breath, agonizingly long pauses in between each phrase.  _

_ “I didn't.... I couldn't help myself.... NOOOOOOOOOOO!” The last word resolved into a deafening scream. _

_ Chiroptera held the lasso implacably as the man screamed and screamed and screamed, and then gibbered. She did not move or flinch, but her eyes, watching, were full of pity. _

_ After several minutes, the  Joker sank to the floor, catatonic. The enormity of his crimes was too much for a lucid man to endure. The lasso of truth had broken his mind. _

_ Very gently, Chiroptera secured the lasso on her belt again, then cradled him in her arms to take him back to Arkham. _


End file.
